The present invention relates to a silent anti-theft protection system for goods presented to the public. It finds applications in the field of security installations and in particular for consumption article display stands to which consumers have access.
Anti-theft installations are known, which are of the type control unit linked to sensors fixed to goods presented to consumers on one or more display stands. These goods can be manipulated by the consumers for examination or test. Facing accessible goods, consumers are subjected to a strong temptation and some of them could decide to steal the article. Most of them are dissuaded therefrom by the anti-theft installation that is configured to generate an audible alarm signal when there is a theft attempt (including manipulation or vandalism) and/or an actual theft.
The normal handling of the goods causes significant stresses on the sensors and/or the sensor—control unit link, which may result in the sensor unfastening from the article and trigger an alarm. These handling operations may also result with time in bad contacts in the connectors or the sensors—control unit links, which may also be a source of alarm.
Even if the available installations generally have a low rate of untimely triggering of the audible alarm, the fact remains that repeated occurrences thereof may be demotivating for security employees or, more generally, the employees of the place. Indeed, on the one hand, after a number of alarms “for nothing”, the employees are no longer motivated to go and see. On the other hand, when an alarm is audible and several employees are liable to respond to it, some of them may think, for any good or bad reason, that another person will go and see, and it may happen that, finally, nobody responds. Moreover, these audible alarms, whatever their causes are, are not reassuring for certain consumers. Finally, as for the ill-intentioned consumers, the existence of an audible alarm may be an interesting source of information regarding the triggering conditions and may help for trying to determine what can be the theft or vandalism actions that do not trigger the alarm.
Therefore, it is advantageous to have available an anti-theft installation that permits to detect thefts and/or other actions prejudicial to the goods or the anti-theft system, and that does not trigger an audible alarm while informing the employees that something abnormal is happening. It is even preferable that the information is personally provided to the employees, so that each employee is personally motivated to react to it. Moreover, by way of security, in case no employee can be informed or even react, it is useful that an audible alarm is finally triggered.